It’s Not Too Late To Punish Babangida For June 12 Election Annulment, Other Crimes—Even If It’s One Day Before His Death –Sowore
Sowore also spoke on Babangida’s denial of personally annulling the June 12, 1993 election and pointing accusing fingers on late former military dictator, Sani Abacha.
Human rights activist and former presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore, has strongly condemned the continued recognition and celebration of former military ruler, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB).
Sowore, convener of #RevolutionNow movement, described Babangida as a “villain” responsible for Nigeria’s democratic setbacks.
In an interview with Nigerian Info FM, Sowore decried the fact that Babangida, who annulled the historic June 12, 1993, presidential election, is being honoured instead of facing justice for his actions.
He expressed dismay that the former leader, instead of “rotting in jail,” is enjoying privileges and reverence despite his role in what many consider one of Nigeria’s darkest political betrayals.
Babangida, popularly known as IBB, who ruled Nigeria from 1985 to 1993, remains a controversial figure in the nation’s political history.
His annulment of the June 12 election, widely believed to have been won by Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale (MKO) Abiola led to political unrest and prolonged military rule, which ended in 1999.
Many Nigerians still hold him responsible for derailing the country’s democratic process.
During the launch of his book, “The Journey in Service,” and a fundraising event for his presidential library in Abuja on Thursday, Babangida acknowledged that Abiola won the June 12, 1993 presidential election, admitting that he takes full responsibility for the annulment.
During the interview, Sowore, a longtime advocate for good governance and accountability, argued that Nigeria’s failure to prosecute leaders who subvert democracy has emboldened impunity in the nation’s political system.
He said, “I’m convinced and I have expressed even before the book was launched a few days ago that it was going to be a pack of lies.
“My own conviction starts from the fact that Nigeria is so backward that justice is so delayed that people’s lives are ruined, the economy of this country was destroyed, the future of this country was suspended in 1993 by Babangida.
“For him to come back 32 years later to slap the Nigerian people in the face with a book launch and a launch for his presidential library which raised over N17 billion in three hours instead of rotting in jail shows that Nigeria is not working.
“Nigeria never worked and we must make sure that this country works so that people who engage in impunity and criminal activities just don’t get away with it in such a way that they were even rewarded years later.”
The human rights activist further said, “I feel so sad but it is interesting that this has been our position for the 32 years that Abiola won the election which he ought to have been made President immediately and this country would have made considerable progress travelling down the lane of democratic progress and economic progress.
“But that was suspended and disrupted by Babangida and his gangs and they came back yesterday (Thursday); that room where he launched his book yesterday was the gathering of all the criminals that made Nigeria unable to progress.”
Sowore also spoke on Babangida’s denial of personally annulling the June 12, 1993 election and pointing accusing fingers on late former military dictator, Sani Abacha.
He said, “IBB has never told the truth in his life, and I’m not surprised that he has continued to engage in falsehood.
“The Yorubas have a common saying that when a criminal wants to lie, he will say that his witness has died. And that is what IBB did exactly with mentioning Abacha.
“IBB never wanted to hand over power. We forced him out of power in August 1993. He postponed the transition programme several times.”
“He wanted to become a civilian President and he just kept dribbling the Nigerian people for as long as it lasted until he dribbled himself out of power.
“He later confirmed that he did so much evil to Nigerians that he accepted the label of being an evil genius,” he said.
Babangida also claimed that the decision to annul the June 12, 1993 election was at the interest of Nigerians to avert what he described as impending doom that would have befallen Nigeria.
But Sowore said, “I’m sorry to say these are foolish talks, and this is what happens when people don’t get put in their place by the system that ought to put everybody in place in the society like ours.
“If IBB had been taken care of, that is, arrested, prosecuted and jailed for the monumental crimes he committed against Nigerian people, he would probably be due for parole now from imprisonment and he will be begging to be paroled into freedom after 33 years.”
Sowore said it is unfortunate that the majority of the current generation of Nigerians were not born as of 1993 and were not taught history in school to enable them know the crime IBB committed.
“I must admit that he knows that his collaborators and co-conspirators understand that Nigerians generally also have very short memory,” he said.
Sowore was asked if the right thing to do is for IBB to apologize to Nigerians rather than merely admitting that Abiola won the election and taking responsibility for the annulment.
He said, “No, an apology is unnecessary. It is punishment that is necessary and I dare say that it doesn’t matter when he is punished but IBB ought to be punished even if it is one day to his death. He deserves to be punished.
“It is never too late to punish people for their crimes, especially when crimes against humanity are involved. As I speak, there are people who are still being punished for the Second World War. People who participated in Nazi concentration camps, who tortured people.
“They are in their 90s and they are still undergoing trials. Some are still going to jail. Around 1999 in the US, the men who carried out the bombing of the Baptist church in Birmingham, one of them was 84 years old and he was arrested.
“They just found out he was one of the people who carried out that crime in 1963. They are still in jail as we speak, if they have not died. So, there are no time limitations placed on when people can be punished for their crimes.
“Apology is not what is needed because people ought to be deterred from doing this in the future. Anybody who wants to annul election, or rig election will derive his inspiration from Babangida who did it and 33 years later, he is launching a presidential library and getting paid and accolades poured on him.
“And some of the people who are pouring accolades on him were people who claimed they opposed to him at that time.
“This is why I was saying that the democracy movement brought together a bunch of very deceptive and hypocritical characters. They weren’t actually fighting for Abiola at that time. They were just capitalizing on the popularity of the opposition of the public against the annulment.
“And you see them now, they have come out and they are competing to donate money to Babangida and nobody is talking about what happened to Abiola whose future was destroyed, his wife was killed, his family was scattered.
“If they admit that he won the election, he should posthumously become the President of Nigeria, his family put in proper place.
“But my issue is how to get people who carry out these heinous crimes to be punished for it.”
Asked the appropriate punishment for IBB and his gangs, Sowore said, “I think it is to immediately round them up, arrest them and start a trial that will allow for full disclosure of who and who was involved in that election annulment. Who carried it out?
“Whoever is alive amongst them, not forgetting that this is not just about June 12, there was a journalist that was also parcel-bombed at that time, Dele Giwa, and before that time, nobody is talking about him.
“We are not talking about the phantom coup that led to the death of a lot of officers who never participated in any coup. We had a plane crash that took out middle-level officers and some of the brightest officers at that time in the Nigerian Army.
“We ought to know what happened to them. We ought to find out how over $12 billion disappeared from our coffers after the Golf War windfall from oil sales.
“There are a lot of crimes involved with Babangida’s eight-year tenure that require immediate criminal investigation and prosecution.”
Sowore, however, noted that with the current crop of Nigerian leaders and past leaders, it is obvious Babangida will not be punished adequately for his crimes against Nigerians.
“Not with this crop of leaders but we can bring him to book someday and that is one of the things I’m interested in as a person who is a witness to that historical moment, but we need to make the next set of historical decisions and one of them is to get men to pay for their crimes against the Nigerian people.
“This is why Nigeria didn’t make progress for some over 40 years because had we allowed the election to go as it ought to be, we would not be talking about terrible elections today. We would not be talking about these men. Some of these men who are in power today wouldn’t have been in power because they would have been swept away by that era.
“But they understood and that is why they are bonding together and helping the man brush his image and making him look like a hero that he is not.
“Babangida is a villain and he should be consigned to the dustbin of history. It is my hope that that will happen one day very soon.”
